Tim Wiles steps up to the plate to answer questions about baseball

Seven-year-old Dakota's letter to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum says that her first-grade class just read a book called "George Washington's Breakfast."

Now, she wants to know, "What did Babe Ruth eat for breakfast?"

"Relief pitchers," one of Tim Wiles' staff retorts, but Mr. Wiles does some research and comes up with the correct answer: The Babe liked either a pile of pancakes or a "farmer's breakfast" of bacon, eggs and toast.

"I get paid to answer questions like this!" enthused Mr. Wiles, director of research for the Cooperstown baseball mecca. He is a parishioner of St. Mary's Church in Oneonta.

Nun better

On the wall of the research room outside Mr. Wiles' office is a portrait of player/manager Casey Stengel, whom Mr. Wiles called the "patron saint" of his department for this famous quote: "You could look it up."

And they do: 10,000 people visit the Hall of Fame's library every year to do research in its vast files on players, broadcasters, statistics, baseball history -- even details as obscure as the "career" of one Sister Mary Assumpta of Cleveland, whose habit of baking chocolate-chip cookies for the Indians team every week earned her a marketing deal with an Ohio cookie company.

"There's all these nuns in our files," Mr. Wiles noted, closing a drawer among rows of file cabinets filling an entire room -- one of a warren of temperature-controlled rooms packed with books, clippings, photographs, microfilm and more.

What's it worth?

An astonishing 100,000 baseball fans per year, from documentary filmmakers to kids like Dakota, call or write the four-member research department with questions.

With the exception of fees for extensive photocopying, most inquiries are answered for free.

Many visitors also bring in autographed baseballs or other memorabilia, wanting to know the items' value. That's one service the librarians can't provide, however: Since the museum accepts donations of such memorabilia, the IRS prohibits the staff from appraising anything.

Stumped

Another struggle for the researchers is the occasional "stumper."

Mr. Wiles keeps a file of questions he has so far been unable to answer: One man is looking for a poem he heard as a child about a French Canadian who travels to New York City to take in a ball game; a different questioner is on the hunt for a newspaper article from the 1970s that proposed left-handed players be allowed to run the bases in reverse.

The unanswered questions bother Mr. Wiles, but he tries to shrug them off. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp," he philosophized.

To Cooperstown

The research director sees many things from a spiritual perspective -- even the journey that brought him to Cooperstown.

A native of Peoria, Illinois, he was about to graduate from the University of Iowa in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in English when he happened upon an article in "Sports Illustrated" about a librarian at the Hall of Fame. The accompanying photo showed the librarian wearing a period baseball uniform.

"On Monday, I called him and asked him for a job," Mr. Wiles remembered. "He said, 'You're the 30th person to call.'"

The patient librarian advised the young man to get a master's degree in library science -- and was surprised when Mr. Wiles promised, "I'll make an appointment [to enroll] this afternoon."

God's work?

By 1990, Mr. Wiles had the degree and was interning at the museum. It took four years and a job in a college library before a full-time position in Cooperstown opened up; but, in 1995, he came back to the Hall of Fame for good.

Looking back, he mused, "You wonder if God is at work in your life."

He sees his calling as a position where "magic happens all the time," where he can hear people's stories about their experiences with and passion for baseball every day.

Cubbies

"There's a strong Catholic interest in baseball," he noted, "probably more from Red Sox and Cubs fans."

Mr. Wiles is himself a supporter of the Cubs, who haven't won a World Series since 1908.

"It's a good spiritual exercise," he said wryly. "It teaches you that life is not about instant gratification. Moses and the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years; the Cubs have been doing that two-and-a-half times as long."

(One question Mr. Wiles is often asked by young people is why African-Americans were prohibited from playing Big League baseball until 1947. "That's a big question, one that involves a lot more than baseball," Mr. Wiles stated; "but it's also an opportunity to educate" the questioner. Mr. Wiles' great-grandfather, Ben Caffyn, played in the major leagues for one year, 1906, with the Cleveland Naps. Mr. Wiles and his wife, Marie, named their son for him. Got a baseball question? Go to www.baseballhalloffame.org to check ABNER, the American Baseball Network for Electronic Research; or contact the Hall of Fame's librarians at 607-547-0330 or [email protected].)

CENTENNIAL

Book takes baseball fans around basis of hit song

If you're offered peanuts and Cracker Jacks, you'll probably start humming a song right away -- in fact, the third most frequently performed song in the U.S., right behind "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Happy Birthday to You."

This year is the 100th anniversary of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," sung during the seventh-inning stretch by all 30 major league ball clubs.

In addition to his work at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, Tim Wiles has just co-authored a book on the song that has become such a part of American pop culture.

Hymn to baseball

"Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game,'" traces not just the song's creation in 1908 and growth to its present status as "baseball's anthem," but also the colorful stories of lyricist Jack Norworth and composer Albert Von Tilzer, and even fun facts like the history of Cracker Jack and its connection to the game.

Co-authors Andy Strasberg (former marketer for the San Diego Padres) and Bob Thompson (associate dean at SUNY-Purchase and co-producer of the Baseball Music Project, a series of theatrical concerts) handled the "musicological" end of the book.

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game," they note, actually has two verses, although the refrain -- not actually played at a ballgame until 1934 -- is the only part most baseball fans know.

History for a song

Mr. Wiles said that his role in writing the wide-ranging book was to cover "everything else":

* the song's use in movies and television, including 1949's "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," starring Frank Sinatra;

* its popularity during the seventh-inning stretch;

* the fact that behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner taught pigeons to peck out the tune on a seven-note piano; and

* facts about women and baseball.

The latter is important, Mr. Wiles explained, because "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is written from the point of view of a woman -- the fictional Katie Casey, who was "baseball mad" and demanded her suitor take her to a game rather than the theater.

Jack Norworth even rewrote the lyrics in 1927 with a new heroine, Nellie Kelly, solidifying his copyright on the song until the year 2022. (He died in 1959, survived by his fifth wife.)

Keeping time

The song's history stretches back to the probable tall-tale that Mr. Norworth wrote the lyrics on a New York City subway car, but Mr. Wiles told The Evangelist that "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" didn't become a daily ritual at baseball games until 1976.

That fact surprised even Mr. Wiles, who would have thought he'd been participating in the sing-along his whole life.

Along with the book comes a CD of different versions of the song, from Mr. Wiles' favorite version by Dr. John to broadcaster Harry Caray's rendition, leading a stadium of Chicago Cubs fans.

More verses

Mr. Wiles was disappointed that it wasn't until after the book's release that he discovered lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in six languages, including Hawaiian and Japanese.

"I wish we could have included them!" he lamented.

Another dream to expand the project will also have to wait: Jack Norworth's father built Kanauff church organs in Philadelphia, and "if I had an unlimited PR budget," Mr. Wiles said dreamily, "I would put together a concert."

He wants to hear "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" played solely on a variety of organs built by the songwriter's father.

(Mr. Wiles and Mr. Strasberg were friends prior to writing the book, but Mr. Thompson, who proposed the project, got the idea from an article Mr. Wiles wrote in the Hall of Fame's magazine on connections between baseball and music. The three-way partnership "made for a much better book -- and a lifelong friendship," Mr. Wiles said. The song has been recorded by musicians from LL Cool J to the Boston Pops, and even appeared on Wheaties cereal boxes in 1954 as a "sound sheet" that could be cut out and played on a phonograph (KB).

(04/17/08) [[In-content Ad]]